RUTH SUNDERLAND: Help for exporters is missing link in George Osborne's Autumn Statement

Vision: Trade minister Lord Livingstone is hoping to turn 9,000 or so medium-sized companies into a British ‘Mittelstand’

The big omissions from a Budget or an Autumn Statement are always revealing. It used to be help for savers that was conspicuous by its absence, until George Osborne grasped the pensions and Isa nettle.

This week the missing element was the squeezed middle.

Not households, but firms – the 9,000 or so medium-sized companies that trade minister Lord Livingstone is hoping to turn into a British ‘Mittelstand’.

Emulating the German export businesses that have powered its industrial strength is a good idea if we want to correct the deep-seated flaws in the UK economy.

But mid-sized firms have fallen through the cracks.

The Autumn Statement contains a £45m package of help for exporters, though this offered assistance with contacts and market knowledge, not cash.

There is also the Northern Powerhouse to redress the pro-London tilt in the economy, though this sounds more like an assemblage of initiatives under an umbrella name than a strategy.

When it comes to an export and productivity-led recovery, however, the underlying picture is a bit grim. The Office for Budget Responsibility has scaled back its forecast for export growth next year to 2.4 per cent, a sharp drop from its March prediction of 4.7 per cent.

Britain’s export market share has fallen dramatically since 1998. Part of the reason is the emergence of nations previously under the Communist yoke such as China, but this is the new reality and we have to learn to compete.

Productivity is still below its pre-crisis peak. The employment market has moved towards low paid, low productivity jobs, which in turn mean tax receipts have fallen short of expectations.

No wonder Osborne had to turn to old faithful, the housing market, for a pre-election fillip.

Sovereign gold

The idea of a sovereign wealth fund for the North is an excellent one, but if only the UK had established a fund in the Seventies, instead of squandering our North Sea bounty, we would be in much better shape now.

Unfortunately, neither James Callaghan nor Margaret Thatcher could resist the temptation of spending the windfall.

Sterling was seen as a petro-currency and its strengthening made life harder for manufacturers, contributing to the shift to a services economy and the skew towards London and the finance sector that, for better or worse, we have today. Norway, which took a more far-sighted approach, now has the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund, with assets of nearly $900bn.

In fairness, the Norwegians had more oil than we did and have a much smaller population. But the point stands that it is now much better placed to meet challenges such as an ageing population.

Sovereign funds have become some of the world’s most powerful investors with significant holdings in UK assets. A new British fund could invest strategically in Northern firms and infrastructure and make a huge difference to the region. No one knows whether the anticipated shale gas revolution will come to pass, but if the commercial opportunity from Northern shale proves as great as hoped, then a sovereign fund could also help bridge the North-South divide.

Whatever one’s politics, it is a fact that some Northern communities have still not recovered properly from the 1980s industrial devastation. A wealth fund established by Osborne could go a long way to heal those lasting wounds.

Tinker, tailor

HSBC, which owns John Lewis financial services, is understandably twitchy about potential money laundering, after having to pay £1.2bn in the US for acting as a sluice for drug and terror funds.

But its methods are odd. I have a John Lewis Partnership card and several years ago took out another for my husband. So I was a bit surprised to receive a letter last week asking for proof of his identity.

I was told to supply proof of my husband’s identity and address on two documents, verified by ‘an acceptable certifier’.

These are drawn from a bizarre selection of professions including airline pilot, Merchant Navy officer, Christian Science Minister and postman. Bank officials, despite their penchant for money-laundering, are acceptable – financial journalists are not.

The letter did offer me 500 extra reward points to jump through the hoops. Rather than lurk around Heathrow asking pilots to sign, I cancelled the card.

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RUTH SUNDERLAND: Help for exporters is missing link in George Osborne's Autumn Statement